The Sound Of Running is the running blog of Marcus Ryder it accompanies the audio diary; audioboo.fm/TheSoundOfRunning and twitter feed of @RunningRyder. It charts the thoughts, musings and life of a keen amateur runner who is trying to figure out why he runs and why he loves it.
Warning: this blog will not make you a faster runner, slimmer or fitter. But hopefully it will make you think.

Wednesday, 24 April 2013

Running Is All About Focus

On Sunday I completed the London marathon.

I finished in a time of 3hours 13minutes, although it is
only 2 minutes off my PB, in light of all my training and where my physical
fitness is right now it was not a good result.

People say that distance running is at least 50% mental. I always
thought that was about pushing through pain, being mentally tough to never give
up and stuff like that. On Sunday I found out that it is so much more than that
and I really wasn’t prepared.

As well as giving you inner strength and determination the
mental side of the running is also about focus; focus to run your own race,
focus not to be distracted by what is around you, focus to stick to your
training. On Sunday I lost focus.

Here is my story of losing focus:

The London marathon starts at 3 different places, one for
elite athletes, another for good runners and the last for fun runners. At different
points the three sets of marathon runners all merge. I was in the middle start
for good runners. The runners I was with were not expected to run much faster
than 3hours 15 minutes and I wanted to run a 3 hour marathon. So when I started
I ran away from my fellow runners. I went off far too fast. I lost focus.

After about a mile I merged with some of the really good
runners. They were running really fast (well a lot faster than I am used to)
and they were overtaking me. I am not used to being overtaken so much and so I
started running at their pace. Again I lost focus and instead of running my race I
ran someone else’s race.

I crossed the 10km point in 39minutes. If I had kept going at
that pace I would have finished the marathon in a sub 2hour 50minute time!

I knew I was going far too fast but if running is mental I
had left my mind at the starting line, I just kept going for it.

And here is where I completely lost focus. With the
crowds swelling and cheering us on I felt invincible. I finished the next 10km
in 40 minutes. I had really convinced myself I could complete my marathon with
a PB of 2 hours 50! Within an hour and a half of starting the race I had
slashed my target time by 10 minutes!!

As the race progressed my body paid for my mind’s stupidity.

At 16miles I started floundering and the last 6 miles was
pure agony. All those people I had arrogantly run away from at the start in my group all effortlessly overtook me.

As one friend said to me afterwards, “You went off like a
hare and finished like a tortoise”.

In the last 4 months I had trained my body. What the London Marathon
taught me was that next time I need to train my mind as well. - For the people who are reading this who either sponsored me or tweeted their encouragement my next blog post will be about you - but in the meantime - THANKS!!

(The picture today is of the vest I ran in with my number still attached - I do that after each marathon as you can see from my profile picture which is of my first marathon vest following the Rio marathon)

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About Me

I am a keen amateur runner. I love running but I'm more interested in what running can help me discover about myself and life than what I can tell the world about running. Running is not simply putting one foot in front of the other as fast and for as long as possible any more than meditation is simply closing your eyes sitting cross legged on the floor